


We Are Not Things

by happycookiie



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Blood and Torture, Blood and Violence, Cannibalism, Disturbing Themes, Drama, F/M, Family, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Minor Character Death, Murder, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-14 19:56:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5756245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happycookiie/pseuds/happycookiie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Instead of the Grady officers, Beth is actually taken in that car by the people of Terminus, as well as Rick. Held captive by the cannibals, the two must fight their way out together. As they do, Rick is surprised by how Beth demonstrates the change in her that Daryl evoked, proving how formidable she really is. <b><i>[HIATUS]</i></b></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Taken

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of a what if? fic that I wanted to write, the idea being that instead of Beth being kidnapped by the Grady officers, she is captured by the Termians instead. I always felt the Terminus storyline was pretty damn disappointing and ran a little short, and I always wondered how Beth would have dealt with the situation if she was there. So the idea for this fic was born. Plus, I felt like writing a multi-chapter Brick fic, since I've only written ones like this for Bethyl.
> 
> So enjoy, and don't forget to leave a comment with your thoughts.

Beth slung the bag containing hers and Daryl's supplies over her shoulder and limped quickly over to the window.

Shoving it open, the sounds of the walkers snarling and following Daryl to wherever he was leading them keeping her on edge, she crawled out over the ledge and tumbled out onto the ground. It was dark outside, the stars dim and the moon hidden behind a burst of dark clouds, and the sounds of muffled walkers and struggling inside the house were deeply unsettling.

Keeping Daryl's orders firm in her mind, she hauled herself up, wobbling on her throbbing ankle, and staggered along over the leaves to the road.

As she did, she tried to swallow the lump in her throat and blink away her tears. Tears of fear that Daryl might not come out and meet her like he'd said. Because invincible he may be, he was only human, just like the rest of them, and he could definitely die if given the right situation.

And what if he died here?

What if the walkers overwhelmed him? Cornered him? And he never came out to find her? Well. As _himself_ , at least.

 _Last man standing_.

That didn't mean he had to be _alive_ to stay standing, with the world the way it was now.

Thoughts flooded with the panic that Daryl Dixon might be able to _die_ , and turn without having anyone there with him, Beth limped out into the road and didn't bother to look out for any approaching vehicles. She hadn't exactly expected there to _be_ any, and to be honest, and the car quite literally came out of nowhere.

It stopped just before it slammed into her, and brushed her thigh with its black metal front.

The lights were off on the vehicle and it almost seemed empty, but empty vehicles didn't drive around on their own and nearly knock down escaping survivors.

Every hair standing up on her body and her senses _screaming_ at her to _get the hell out of there_ , she stepped back and toppled on her twisted ankle, falling onto her backside. She hit the gravel with a bump, a bruise clearly going to form there because of it, and she jumped when the front doors of the car opened.

A man stepped out, features cast in shadow with the dark, but Beth could make out dark hair swept to the side, and traces of messy stubble on his chin. He stepped out of the car and stared down at her with a sleazy expression, before whistling to his male friend and making his way over to where she sat.

They hooked their arms underneath hers, hauling her up and subduing her thrashing, and she dropped the bag in the process.

They held her tight and kept her struggling at bay, ignoring her protests and blocking her kicks.

"Let _go_ o' me!" she yelled, jolting in their hold, and the man with the stubble smirked.

"Don't fight us," he said, "Come _with_ us. You'll be safe."

"I don't wanna come with you! I'm waitin' for- _ah!_ "

The other man stabbed his hand into her hip and knocked her out, her body falling limp in their hold, and as her vision slowly faded to black, she saw them lift and carry her into the black car.

_I'll meet you there._

She hadn't considered that _she'd_ be the one to break that promise.

.

.

Rick trudged forward through the woods, his Colt Python .357 tucked into his belt and in reaching range in case of any trouble.

He'd left Carl and Michonne in a house a couple of miles down the chase, following the signs to where the sanctuary known as _Terminus_ was supposed to stand. Being the extremely wary man he was, he'd wanted to check the place out first to check for legitimacy and genuine safety, instead of just waltzing in there with the only two people he considered family left.

He couldn't lose any more.

No more taking risks.

He walked along the train tracks in the direction the maps had pointed, and hoped to come across a building or community of some sorts, that is if the place was even still there now.

Eventually, the tracks began to merge with other rail lines, connecting them, and a building _did_ come into view then, surrounded by fences... And then did Rick realise what the place was.

It was, as the name itself would suggest, a Terminus.

A train station where the place were tracks would intersect, all leading to this one spot, and the fences around it were strong and intact, unlike theirs at the fallen prison. He walked up to the front gate and placed a hand on the metal wire, watching smoke rise from the chimneys.

There were still people in there, the smoke proved.

The sanctuary was still standing.

Now the only question was... Was it really what could be _called_ a sanctuary, like they claimed?

He removed his hand from the gate and tried to figure out how to get the attention of the people inside, when he heard a running engine coming up behind him on the road. He turned and saw a black car driving up to the gate, and it stopped just before him.

He reached and pulled out his gun, and pointed it at the car window.

"I don't want any trouble," he said, "Saw your signs about this place."

The driver door opened slowly, and a voice called from inside.

"It's ok, man. We don't want no trouble either."

Rick didn't lower his gun, but it didn't discourage the driver of the car, because he stepped out cautiously and raised his hands.

"I'm not gonna hurt you," the man said, "We welcome people here. I'm Gareth, an' you are?"

"Rick."

"Well Rick, is it just you here? You alone or you got some other people hidin' out whilst you check if the place is good?"

Rick masked his surprise at Gareth's perceptiveness, and slightly lowered his gun.

" _Is_ the place good?"

"Why don't ya check it out for yourself, if you want?"

Gareth said something to his friend in the passenger seat, and closed the driver door as he walked towards Rick.

His friend must have moved into the seat at the wheel, because the car moved forward an inch or so, and Gareth went to unlock the gate.

"You can put that down now," he said, gesturing to the Python, and Rick narrowed his eyes.

He put the gun down, but didn't tuck it back into its usual place at his hip. He kept it in his hand and followed Gareth through the gate, the black car following them into the sanctuary grounds.

Rick admired the state of the exterior, and studied how organised things looked. It was clean, sporting a few other vehicles, and smoke rising from the spires indicated people working inside. It seemed decent _enough_ for the time being; seemed legitimate.

 _Don't be easily deceived_ , he heard Michonne warn in his head. _Woodbury looked nice and well when I first got there, and look what that turned out to be._ _Don't be so quick to pass judgement on a place just because it stakes the claim of the title: haven._

He followed Gareth through the front doors and into the building the train tracks joined.

"So you might not like this... But I'm gonna have to ask you to give your weapons over whilst you're here." Gareth said carefully.

Rick stepped back.

"It's just a precaution! We don't want you firing that thing off in here. People could get hurt, you could draw those things, or worse."

"What's worse than those two things?"

"...I'll just leave that up to your imagination. _Rick_."

Hesitantly, Rick unstrapped his gun holster and handed it over.

Gareth eyed him knowingly, so he sighed and handed over the machete he had tucked beneath his jacket. He didn't, however, surrender the knife he had tucked inside his boot.

"That everythin'?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Then ya won't mind if Alex here checks to see if you're lying?"

Rick maintained a sombre look, and the one called Alex strolled over to him and patted the length of his body down to check for more weapons. He lifted his arms so the man could check under them, and Alex frowned when he finally stepped away, unsuccessfully finding the knife hidden in his boot.

"He's clean," Alex nodded, "Nothin' else on him, like he said."

"Good." Gareth smiled, "Come take a look around then."

Rick followed behind Gareth out of the train area and into the building, Alex and the other men behind him.

It was odd, and he didn't quite know how to explain it, but there was something... _strange_ about this place. Something _off_. Their security was understandable and the leaving of outsiders' weapons, as uncomfortable and naked as it made him feel, but there was still something he could feel was wrong. With the way the air smelled as he breathed it in. The way the ground felt beneath his feet. Gareth and his men.

There was something wrong, and his senses were screaming at him to _get the fuck out_. And Rick liked to listen to his gut a lot of the time. Because it was usually right.

"How many people you got holed up in here?" he asked to break the tense silence.

"Oh y'know, 'bout a couple dozen or so. We would have more but... People ain't so easy to come by nowadays. That's why we broadcast that message, to bring 'em in."

"'Those who arrive survive'?"

"That's the one."

"But if this is a close knit community that wants to keep its people safe, why're you so set on invitin' other people in? Strangers."

_What makes you think you can trust people like me?_

"We believe in the kindness of strangers, and I know if I was out there, I'd wanna be some place like this — safe, warm... fed."

"So you just take in anyone?"

"Not _anyone_. Well, anyone is _welcome_ , but it takes a lot for us to actively _accept_ someone in to join our community as a member. Only a few get into the higher ranks… and you strike me as a guy who might make it in."

"What happens to the ones that don't make it in?"

"Are you hungry, Rick?" Gareth asked suddenly, suspiciously changing the subject, "Thirsty? Tired? Surely from being out there for so long you are?"

"...Yeah... I guess."

"Good. Then we'll let ya try out or specialty. Mama loves cookin' grub for new people. She'll throw a house warmin' when she learns you're here."

"Ya have meat? So you have a hunting squad to go out catchin' stuff then?"

"Yes... _Catching_... I'll go let her know. You go with Albert an' Mike to the bunkers so you can get rested up before Mama gets supper on the go."

"Alright."

Gareth nodded at his men and strolled off with Alex to apparently find his mother, whilst Rick turned to face them.

The ones known as Albert and Mile stepped forward, and gestured for him to follow. He did, but he couldn't help but notice the formation the men walked with him — one in front and one behind, so he was sandwiched in the middle. He hadn't been in the police academy for as long as he had without knowing what they were doing.

They were walking like he was being held captive, and they were afraid he would try something.

A prisoner.

He tried to brush it aside as general security measures... But found he couldn't. The positioning was too tight; too deliberate. Something was _very_ wrong with this place, and he wanted to find out _what_ before he brought Carl and Michonne up here.


	2. Meat in the locker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth wakes up in a dark space, and Rick finds himself in a dangerous situation with the Termians. Now that the secret is out, and the truth has been made clear... he can't be allowed to live, can he?
> 
> Two little lambs huddle together in the freezer, awaiting the time for their eventual slaughter, and they let the dark swallow them.

Darkness was what Beth saw when she opened her eyes, and for a second she was unsure if she was still staring at the black of her eyelids. But when her vision began to adjust and the surroundings slowly started to become apparent, she saw that she had been tossed in some dark, confined space.

Her hands were bound with cuffs, locked with a key, and she lay crumpled on the hard floor of the room with her ankle pulsing in agony. She groaned and attempted to awkwardly push herself up, shifting her injured foot higher and gently wiggling it.

She leaned against the wall and sighed, head falling back to rest against the glacial metal. Her head pounded and her breathing was coarse, throat dry from thirst, and the cuffs rubbed against her wrists mercilessly, leaving raw, scabby marks where they sliced. She winced and attempted to stand, wobbling as she put pressure on her sore ankle. She hobbled over to where a narrow stream of light was shining into the dim room, and leaned closer to peer out through the gap.

It was just vast white she saw through the gap, the light too harsh, and she pressed her forehead against the cool wall to exhale.

Daryl materialised in her mind then, his face as he'd told her to run, and she felt a pang in her chest at the rising memories.

She thought of their time together on the road, the growing friendship that had flowered. Of how he'd been willing to stay there in that funeral home with her — just the two of them, as if she had been enough.

She thought of him _now_. Alone; afraid; wondering where she'd gone…

 _Dead_.

But not just dead... _Turned_. Or worse, eaten and entirely picked clean–

 _No_.

She shook her head and brought her bound hands up to slap her cheeks. Roughly, so they stung with the ache, and the tiny hairs stood up in pain.

 _I'm not gonna leave you_.

She hadn't meant to lie. But she also hadn't meant to get knocked by a car and two strange men, and holed up in a dark space with her wrists handcuffed together.

Things never seemed to go the way she'd planned, at least not now.

She'd wanted to stay safe in the farm, and that had burned. She'd wanted to live with the others in the prison forever, and that had been blown to shreds. And the recent one — she'd been gratified to stay with Daryl in that funeral home, and look what had happened now.

Even though things didn't always go the way she wanted, Beth wanted _very_ much to get out of this horrible place. And unlike all the other things she'd wanted, this time, she would _make_ it work.

_You have to. You have to make it work._

.

.

Rick walked between Albert and Mike through a series of corridors, turning in random patterns and never seeming to reach anything that could be described as a bunker.

They were just walking. Endlessly. With no destination in sight.

Rick was _far_ too used to that.

Eventually, they came across a stretch of building that was notably cooler than the rest, and Albert squirmed uncomfortably as if he had made some kind of mistake. Mike shot him a sharp look, and he tried to shrug it off as if everything was fine. Rick let them lead him through a _carvery_ of sorts, carcasses and bone structure laid out on tables, and bloody pulps hanging from hooks in the ceiling. Rick was impressed for a minute by the amount of meat they had... Until he noticed something that made him stop dead in his tracks, causing Mike to bump into him.

"Wha'cha stoppin' like that for?" he snapped, "Keep walking, there ain't nothin' to see here 'cept food."

But Rick was unmoved by the statement.

He stepped out from in-between the two men and walked over to one _particular_ carcass stretched out over a table.

It was long, bloody, torn open so it was hard to distinguish what the species was... But it was still as obvious as the beard on Rick's own face.

There was no denying it.

This was _a human corpse_.

The level of hacking with a blade and removal of the insides made it pretty messy, and the torso was torn to shreds, but the structure was quite clearly belonging to that of a human.

It was a person.

These people were _eating_ other _people_.

Rick finally understood. They broadcast all those messages to draw folks in, get other survivors into the pantry, and chop them up to be served on the platter. And he'd fucking walked right into the trap. Just as he turned to either confront or just kill them, Albert slammed the hilt of his gun over the back of Rick's head and knocked him flat out, sending him falling to the ground, unconscious.

He felt the two dragging him away somewhere, before he completely lost awareness.

.

.

Beth blew a clump of hair out of her eyes as she focused on sawing a chunk of metal in the little room with the chain of her cuffs.

She'd found more streams of light pouring in from another space in the area, and was using it to _do_ something, instead of just sitting and wallowing in the sadness.

She had to _do something_ , chase away the sadness, find her own drink.

The chain was strong, tough metal, not easily breakable, but upon closer inspection... Beth was able to realise that the bonds were no more than _toy_ cuffs that a role-playing stripper would use. Meaning that the mechanism was weaker than a standard pair of cuffs that a police force would use.

Just the right amount of pressure and fiddling would break the circle free from the chain, earning both of her hands freer mobility once again.

She had the chain fastened around a metal bar she'd found attached to the floor, and was tugging at it harshly, ignoring the way the metal scraped at her wrists as she pulled. She already had a screwed up ankle, so what were bloodied and broken hands thrown into the mix as well?

One fierce tug sounded a small _click!_ in the cuffs, but they refused to break open when she pulled at them. Overwhelmed with frustration, she moaned loudly and sunk to her backside, slamming her still joined fists down on the floor.

 _Come on!_ she thought angrily. _Why can't you just break already? I need to get out of here._

With no further luck, she heaved a heavy sigh and rubbed her swollen wrists, eyes squeezing shut when she felt the dull throbbing of her left ankle.

 _You're no help either,_ she scowled at the uselessly immobile limb.

A sudden sound from outside startled her, and her body jolted forcefully so that her ankle thrashed down on the floor. She yelped in pain and caught the chain on the piece of metal, and her reaction was so violent that it broke the mechanism and released the lock binding.

"Finally!" she cried, flushing with pride and then groaning at her swollen foot.

The sounds from outside increased, and she went quiet.

There were voices. Similar sounding to the ones that took her, and she went deadly still against the wall of the room.

The door opened then, sunlight flooding in and illuminating everything, and only then did Beth finally realise where she was.

It was a train box car.

Metal walls and handfuls of hay stalks scattered across the floor. It was smaller than it felt once fully illuminated, and she could now see the true marks that the cuffs had left on her wrists — angry red and blistered.

"Hey, girl!" the man whose voice confirmed he had been one of the men that took her, "You awake? We got ya some company."

_Company?_

They tossed a man in then, roughly so that he hit the floor of the cart with a sharp _thud!_ He was a towering build, even when laid unconscious in a crumple on the floor, and he seemed to be slowly coming to. The men slid the door closed then and bolted it, and the sound of their retreating voices grew fainter with every step.

Inside the box car was dark again, and it took a couple of minutes for Beth's vision to readjust to the dimness, and when it did, the man groggily pushed himself up. He grunted and lifted a hand to rub his head, the sleeves of his shirt torn and bloody. He looked around the empty space before his line of crappy vision fell on her.

She froze.

This man could be dangerous. What if he tried to attack her? Or beat her, kill her... _Rape_ her?

She shuddered and sunk back against the wall, praying that he wouldn't do any of those things, and squeezed her fingers together.

Seconds ticked by, or minutes, or hours, yet the man did nothing. Just stared at her in the dark, the weight of his eyes intense, and she went even stiller and closed her eyes when he crawled closer to her.

"…Hello?" he called, his voice gruff and broken, "Hey,"

Her heart stopped.

She opened her eyes.

That voice... No. It was too far-fetched. But she thought she knew that voice. _Knew_ she knew it. She'd heard it for nearly two years now. But it couldn't be... It just couldn't…

"I'm not gonna hurt you..." he said again in that _impossible_ voice, "Are you ok?"

He crawled closer and as he did, a stream of light fell across his features, illuminating a section of his face in pale blue-green. And Beth's breath came out as a shaky sob.

"…Rick?"

Rick's brows rose and then furrowed in confusion, but when he squinted his eyes to pick out her appearance in the dim light, his lips parted in disbelief as well.

" _Beth_?"

Wasting no time, she launched herself onto him and threw her arms around his neck, nearly sending the both of them toppling over. She held him tight, almost laughing with implausible joy, and he let out a shuddery breath against her neck. His hands were bound with cuffs, unlike hers were now, so he couldn't return the hug. Instead, he rested his forehead on her shoulder and brushed the wiry hairs of his beard across the dirty yellow fabric. She was practically sitting in his lap now, legs wound around him, and she pushed her face into his brown curls and felt her eyes welling up with tears.

But she wouldn't cry. Not now. Not after when she'd promised not to. Because she'd already broken that promise when the Governor had rolled up to their gates and blown holes in their fences, and taken a blade to her Daddy's neck.

 _I_ don't _cry anymore_.

Never mind her, Rick sounded like _he_ was going to cry from the sounds he was making, so Beth pulled away and held him by the shoulders, staring into his wobbly eyes.

"You're ok," he breathed, "You're here, you're _alive_."

"I'm alive." she repeated, and a helpless little smile appeared on his face. The kind of smile he'd been lacking for so long. The smile that had gone sometime after Lori perished in that lonely cell with Carl and Maggie, back when his hope had started to die along with her.

He brought his cuffed hands up and cupped the sides of her cheeks, and tilted her head down to plant a disorganised kiss on the top of her head, and she exhaled in an unsteady breath.

"Are _you_ okay?" she asked then, when he tilted her head back up.

"I'm better now I know someone else is alive, now I know _you're_ alive. How'd you wind up here?"

Her face fell and her eyes shone with still brimming tears.

"…I was with Daryl. Before I ended up here… I was with him for a while."

Rick's smile faded and his eyes held high traces of alarm, and Beth knew what he must be thinking.

"He dead?" he whispered, the words shocking _him_ as they spilled out.

"No he's... He's just... Gone. He's just _gone_ , an' I don't know! He–He–!"

_You're gonna miss me so bad when I'm gone._

_I didn't consider the chance that_ I _might end up havin' to miss_ you _instead_.

"Hey," Rick said calmly, "Calm down, Beth. This is Daryl we're talkin' about, remember? Daryl _Dixon_. S'gonna take a lot to kill him, so don't worry. He'll be fine, jus' like Carl an' Michonne will be too."

Beth's eyes widened.

"They're alive too?"

"Yeah. I left 'em back a couple miles back in case this place wasn't what it claimed to be. And what'd'ya know? It ain't."

She bit down on her lip to hold in a growing sob.

"They're alive..."

"They're alive. And Daryl is too."

It wasn't just that _she_ was wrong with what she'd said that day... _Daryl_ was wrong too.

He'd said that everyone else was dead, and that they'd never see them again. He'd said that and look where she was now. _Rick_ was alive, like she'd known he would be. He was here with her. He was alive, and so were Carl and Michonne… Somewhere.

They could still make it. They _had_ made it. They were _still_ making it.

_We can survive._

_We always survive_.


	3. We do what we gotta do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick and Beth talk in their captivity, and Beth learns the true nature of their captors. Revealing a glimpse of her newly acquired brutality, Rick finds this revelation difficult to deal with.  
> Things happen. People change.  
> Lights darken.

"What do you mean: _'They're cannibals'_?"

"I mean exactly that. They're cannibals. They eat people. I saw their stash before they took me out and stuffed me in here. They wanna eat _us_."

Beth felt a shiver run down her spine.

"That's why they leave those signs," he explained, "And why they broadcast those messages. It's all a story to lure people in."

"Wait. What signs and messages?"

Rick's brow creased.

"You didn't see 'em?"

She shook her head.

"Huh... That's… strange. Were you and Daryl completely avoiding civilisation on purpose?"

"We didn't _find_ any civilisation. The closest we found to it was a funeral parlour. But..."

 _Maybe we should just stick around here for a while_.

That wasn't exactly an option anymore.

"But no," she shook those thoughts away, "We didn't hear anything about this alleged sanctuary."

Because they hadn't heard about this place that maybe everyone was all marching towards... there was a big chance that she and Daryl would've been out in the woods alone _forever_.

Alone, just the two of them, always running.

"Good thing you didn't really. It clearly ain't what it claimed t'be."

"Do you think anyone else that made it out'a the prison might be making their way here too...? Like Maggie?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen any of 'em since the Governor rolled up to our gates and unleashed hell on our lawn. I don't even know if they're still alive."

"They are," she blurted, probably a little too quickly.

Rick looked at her with a curious expression, and she chewed her tongue.

"I just... I don't think we should be so eager to give up on them when we don't know for sure what happened. Look at us, for instance. Carl, Michonne, Daryl... _We_ all made it out. Others could'a too. They could'a."

"I guess when ya put it that way."

Beth stopped biting her tongue and hardened her expression, her eyes shining with determination, and the intense look seemed to surprise Rick.

She realised then that he wasn't used to seeing her like this. Alone, battered, and willing to fight.

She was the baby in the group, the one that needed looking after. And she was sat there looking at him with a fire in her eyes that he probably hadn't seen before. She was showing him the storm inside that she hadn't even known was stirring — the clouds dispersing and thunder crashing. He looked at her and she knew he could see the instinct shining away in her eyes too. The instinct to _survive_ , and do anything to achieve that.

For a moment, he saw her as something similar to himself. For the first time since he moment he met her on the farm…

He looked at her like she was a survivor _too_.

"So how do we get out of here?" she asked, tone firm and eyes still blazing with that defiant inferno.

Rick shared the fiery look and half smiled.

.

.

The light streaming in through the gaps in the box car slowly fading, Rick sat against one of the walls and watched Beth frantically scribbling away in a little book, making use of the final hours of light. He glanced down at his hands, now too freed from their cuffs, and fingered the slab of wood they'd cut from the floor and crafted into a shitty little weapon.

The sound of Beth's breathing and her pen scraping across the paper rapidly filled the silence, the sounds oddly soothing, and at one point she began to _hum_ , faintly.

It was a sad tune. Not like her other songs he'd heard her sing.

Quiet. Lost. Lonely.

The song of a baby bird that had fallen from the tree and couldn't fly back up, stuck at the bottom hopelessly calling for its mother and brothers and sisters.

When the light had almost faded completely, Beth stopped writing and tucked the pen and book into her back jean pocket. She pulled her knees up against her chest and rested her head back against the metal, and Rick saw her eyes drift closed in the dimness.

He thought she might be about to cry, for a moment. Wondered when the moment would come when the sob broke through the air, and her cheeks dampened with salt…

But it never came.

She didn't cry. She didn't muffle any sobs.

She didn't do anything.

She just sat there, tucked up in a ball a few metres away from him, her eyes closed and her breathing soft.

Rick stared, bewildered and oddly beguiled, as she tapped her fingers on her knees and hummed that gentle, sad tune again.

Judith would've liked the sound.

As if she'd sensed something sink in him, she stopped humming and opened her eyes. They stared at him from where she sat, pools of blue-stroke-green gleaming in the grey, and he suddenly felt painfully vulnerable. Like he'd been stripped of all his defences, and left raw for her young and untainted eyes to see.

Like she saw the pain; the loss.

The killer.

And in that moment, he was disgusted _for_ her.

"I tried," he mumbled, causing her brows to knit together in confusion.

"Tried what?"

"To save her. I really did. I tried to, but there was nothin' I could do... It was already too late."

"Rick..." she said, "You're not makin' sense. It was too late for what? Who's _her_?"

" _Judith_ ,"

It came out as a kind of groan, or a whimper, and Beth stilled at the name.

His heart sank even more as her brows furrowed, smoothed, and eventually rose in realisation.

Judith.

A breath fell from her lips shakily.

"...No..." she whispered finally, "You're not..."

"I promised I would take care o' her, promised I'd keep her safe... Couldn't even fuckin' do _that_ , never mind keep a whole prison intact."

"Whatever happened, it's _not_ your fault."

"It is–"

"It's _not_."

Her voice had taken on a harsher tone, and her expression was severe. She stared at him from across the cart with blazing eyes, glittering with tears of sorrow, but a fire still burning.

Those eyes held an air of authority, of _power_ , and the way she'd spoken made her words seem almost true.

_It's not your fault._

_It is though. It is, Beth._

"What happened?" she asked, her voice dropping the hard edge and growing gentler, and the fire in her eyes shrunk.

He chewed on the inside of his cheek and squeezed the wood.

"Was after me an' the Governor got into that scuffle... Michonne ran in and saved my ass, stuck her sword right through his stomach, an' I went off to find Carl. When I did, we went to get Judith. Saw her carrier in the yard, just sittin' there, so we ran to it... And..."

 _We've got to get out of here. We've got to go_.

_It's over. It's over. It's over._

"There was nothin' in the baby carrier," he growled, "Nothin' but a shit ton of _blood_."

 _It's all over_.

Beth shifted from her self-huddle and crawled over to him, stopping and settling herself next to him.

Her hand snaked up onto his knee and gave a firm squeeze, and he bit his tongue.

"It's not your fault." she said again, "Alright? It's not. You did what you could, you tried, it's not on you. _It's not your fault_."

And the fire in her eyes was back again. A fire Rick was sure he hadn't ever seen before in _her_ eyes, because if he had, he would have _definitely_ remembered it. What had sweet doe-eyed Beth Greene gone through in her time with Daryl that has evoked this fire surging inside of her? What had she seen? And _done?_ Perhaps she had finally opened her eyes and seen everything at last.

Every scream, every bite, and every dying breath.

She squeezed his knee again and gave him a tender look, and Rick was filled with a sense of warmth and familiarity.

She'd always been able to do that. Right from the start. With her casual remarks about the weather and daily occurrences, her smiles as she passed him Judith, her general chattiness, the singing... She'd always provided this sense of _home_ , and a reminder of how things used to be.

She was this new world mixed with the old — the dynamically composed contrast of the two.

The in-between.

Not oblivious, but not too far gone. Not a monster like him and so many others.

Not yet.

"Things happened that day," she whispered, "Terrible things. We lost the prison, everybody scattered, my Dad died... But it wasn't anybody's fault."

"It was the damn Governor's fault."

"Maybe. But I'll bet he didn't mean to get himself impaled by Michonne's sword."

He scowled at her in puzzlement.

She shook her head and smiled cruelly, lips wobbling and her eyes glittering with new sadness.

"What I'm tryin' to say... is that things don't always go the way we plan. Problems come up, and things happen, but it's nobody's _fault_ that they happen. Sure, it feels better to blame it on someone, so you have someone to hate. I'm sure as hell not _sidin'_ with the Governor... But the truth is that things just happen, and we can't always stop them. We can just do our best to make sure they don't fall to pieces completely, because that's the kind of world this is now."

_This is the world we live in._

_What have ya seen?_ his mind cried painfully. _How did they corrupt your clueless naïveté like this?_

 _What have they_ done _to you?_

What she represented was one of the few things Rick was striving to protect, as well as the people he cared about.

The innocence. The light untouched by the dark, still shining through.

He'd taken that glimmer of light and tucked it away in a safe little box where the darkness couldn't reach it, safe and warm. But then the box had broken open, and the light had gone running free. Lost and alone outside the safety of the box, the darkness caught it, and whispered the heartbreak and agony into its ear.

Corrupted.

_Why did you have to see?_

.

.

More time passed inside the box, light pouring in through the cracks, then fading again — a constant cycle that reminded Rick and Beth that life still went on outside their captivity.

Beth sat beside her companion against the wall, metal now warm from the heat of their bodies, and ghosted her fingers in the straw on the ground.

Rick was asleep, and weirdly enough Beth didn't think she'd ever _seen_ him sleep before. He obviously did, but she'd never seen him do it.

It had always been her and the others that he made sure were properly rested first. Always her, Carl, and everyone else, while he kept watch with a blade in his hand. Keeping guard over them. _Protector_. Because of his refrain from frequent sleep, hard lines of fatigue settled around his eyes, making them look tired and hollow. With those sunken eyes, growing curls, and wild beard, he looked completely like a man of the wilderness.

A survivor. Invincible. Unbeatable.

…Inhumane.

But now... His features were soft as he slept, she could just pick out in the dim, the lines around his eyes smooth and his lips parted peacefully. His head had fallen down to rest on her shoulder, and his even breaths puffed out and through the fabric of her shirt, sending pulses of warmth across her skin.

He looked human like that. Younger; vulnerable even.

Touchable.

Beth wasn't used to seeing him like this, and she found herself turning her head to stare at a gap in the door.

She'd written one word in her journal earlier when the light was out, just one word that said it all.

 _Trapped_.

They were trapped. Held captive like livestock, ready for the slaughter. No way out.

She counted the seconds that went by with taps of her thumb, soft sounds that marked the time passing, and her fingers lightly brushed the near expanse of the floor. As she was doing this, her fingers touched something on the ground by her leg, coated in strands of hay. Her brow creased and she picked it up, holding it up to her eye to examine.

In the dark, all she could see was a tiny box, rectangular in shape and made of smooth metal. What the object was remained a mystery, but she soon discovered that it had a lid.

The lid popped open, remaining attached to the object, though the contents (if it had any) also remained ambiguous. Too tired to work out what it was, but somehow too tired to sleep, Beth leaned her head to the side and rested it on Rick's, and fiddled with the little box drowsily. Ignoring the cries of her stomach and the dryness of her throat, she ran her thumb down a rough part of the object, feeling a section of it roll and shift.

Intrigued, she pushed down her thumb harder, and jumped when the thing flared to life.

A tiny flame burst from the object, flickering like a ghostly tongue, and only then did Beth realise what it was.

It was a lighter.

The flame provided a minuscule section of light in the box car, and Rick stirred and awoke because of it and Beth's squirming. He stared at it, fire reflected in his eyes, and the lines of stress and fatigue settled back into place.

She held her thumb down on the coil button, maintaining the flame, and Rick tilted his head to look at her.

She smiled.

_The signs are all there, that's what you said, and that's what this is._

_It's a sign. We wished for a sign and we got one, and if that's not saying we'll get out of this, I don't know what is. We can make it out of this place. We can get back to Daryl, to Carl, and to Michonne._

_We can survive, because we always do._

"We're gonna make it out, Rick." she whispered, "We are."

"What if we have to do things to get out? Things neither of us really wanna do."

"Nobody has that choice anymore. You _have_ to do things to stay alive. That's what you taught me."

"Even if it includes killin' these people in cold blood? No talking. No mercy. No second chances this time… Not this time."

Beth's eyes blazed with defiance.

"I'll burn this place down with this lighter here if we have to. I'm not takin' second chances either, at least not here with these people."

"But ya still believe in second chances? In puttin' your faith in complete strangers?"

"Of course I do. Where would Michonne be if we hadn't taken her in and accepted her...? Where would _you_ be if my Daddy hadn't let you all onto the farm?"

_Where would any of us be?_

"It's okay to believe, Rick. But you gotta know when _not_ to trust complete strangers. Now is one of those times. We do what we gotta do here, and we get out."

He nodded.

"We do what we gotta do... _Then_ , we get to live."

 _Then_. Only then.

She shut the flame out on the lighter and plunged them both into darkness, and the last thing she saw before the blackness engulfed them again was the brutality shining in Rick's eyes.

And she knew that hers mirrored his in that moment.


	4. Hansel and Gretel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick and Beth are separated, and Beth is forced to deal with a horrendous predicament that results in her facing something she's never had the misfortune to have to face, even after the world took a drastic sharp turn into Hell. She understands now, that you have to fight... or you die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the comments and additional support, I'm glad to hear you're all already enjoying the story.
> 
> This is a warning for this chapter that there's going to be some... shit that goes down. This is not a happy chapter (it's not really a happy story), and there are things included such as attempted rape, extreme violence and gore, language, etc. If you're not good with all that, I don't advise that you read this chapter, or this story really, but if you're fine with it that's good. Just thought I'd give you a heads up is all before you plunge into this 4000 word chapter of heavy heavy heavy.
> 
> So with that being said, don't forget to leave a comment at the end telling me your thoughts or if you have any questions you'd like answering. Enjoy!

They were being fed properly.

That was the oddest thing that was happening, considering the situation.

Substantial meals, two times a day. Once just before noon, judging by the intensity of the light outside, and once before dusk. Which, again considering the situation, was _very_ strange. Rick watched Beth pick at the bony carcass of what looked to have been a rabbit or some other furry creature, and studied the crispness of her features.

Something was different, he'd determined already, and he was still trying to figure out what. In the way she sat with a lack of skittishness and fright, and the low fire flickering away in her eyes, something was different.

Her lips were pressed together in a tight line, he saw in the dark, and her brows were drawn severely. There was a sharp cut torn on her left cheek as well, just across the cheekbone, and it shone angry and scabbed in the low light.

She looked… _older_.

_Harsher_.

Like the gentle candlelight inside her was slowly being stubbed out like the scorching, disintegrating bud of a cigarette…

_What have they done to you?_

She glanced across at him from where she was picking at the bone structure and flashed the tiniest of smiles, a smile that held limited warmth, unlike the level of gleeful affection that her smiles usually held.

A smile that had seen pain, and loss, and death.

_Why did you see?_

"You okay?" she asked quietly, even her voice sounding sharper and a lot huskier than it did usually. Before he could answer, the door to the box car began rattling as if someone were trying to open it, and the sounds pierced the air like knives.

Quickly, as the sounds increased, Rick crawled over to Beth and clasped her small hand tightly in his own.

"Listen to me, Beth." he said intently, "Whatever happens… You do anythin' you have to do stay alive. _Anything_. Ya understand?"

_We do what we gotta do._

She nodded.

The metallic rattling noise suggested that the bolt on the door was now being removed, and before the door could be opened, Rick cupped Beth's cheeks with his hands and tilted her head down to plant a fast kiss on her brow.

A selfish kiss.

A kiss that demanded she not to die.

"Stay safe, an' stay alive." he whispered against her forehead, and she squeezed his wrist in response.

"You too." she said softly, as he pulled away.

The door was pulled open and sunlight came pouring into the dark holding cell.

Gareth and his men peered in, eyeing the two of them suspiciously, and tapped on the side of the box car loudly. "Come on out," Gareth called, "We got _big_ things planned for you two today."

Rick stood first, casting Beth in shadow behind him, and held a hard facade over his features.

She planted her palm gently on the inside of his knee, giving him one quick squeeze of encouragement, and then pulled away again.

As he climbed out of the box car, Beth following quietly, Gareth noticed their newly unbound hands.

"Well, well," he muttered, "How'd you both manage that?"

Rick scowled.

The fucker was more perceptive than he'd thought.

Gareth withdrew several pieces of rope and wound them around his and Beth's wrists, fastening them tight. Planting a hand on Rick's shoulder, Gareth began to push him in the direction of one of the train buildings, whilst Beth was pushed a different way.

"Where's _she_ goin'?" he asked, causing the men to stop.

Gareth's eyes gleamed lowly as he considered Rick's expression.

"…Can't kill two turkeys in one slaughterhouse at the same time," he answered darkly, "Can you, Rick?"

The way the other Termian was holding Beth and casting her quick, lusty glances suggested that he planned to do something other than just killing her, and Rick growled in the back of his throat.

He stomped his boot on Gareth's foot and thrashed his head against his, knocking him to the side, and tried to get over to where Beth was being held. But Gareth was better than he'd given him credit for… _Again_.

He recovered quickly from being head-butted and knocked his gun against the back of Rick's head when his back was turned, forcing him to the ground.

Rick heard Beth's ear-splitting cry of protest as he toppled to his knees and slowly tilted his head up to look at her.

She was being held back by the lecherous fucker, thrashing and shrieking like a mad thing and flashing her huge, despairing eyes at him.

Gareth pointed the barrel of the rifle right against Rick's temple and shot her an inquisitive look.

"Please don't!" she begged, eyes huge and shiny with desperation, "Please! I'll do anything! I'll stop puttin' up a fight, I won't resist, I'll do whatever you say just _please_ don't kill him!"

The plea echoed around the barren perimeter, and Rick felt his chest tighten. Her breaths came out in short breathy gasps, and he saw Gareth smirk at her reaction.

"…Please don't…" she sniffled quietly, and Gareth's smirk grew.

"Oh, little girly…" he shook his head tauntingly, "I'm not just gonna kill him… I'm gonna yank out his liver and feed it to you on a fucking _plate_."

Her eyes shot wider and her jaw fell, and Rick felt panic rising in his chest.

She screamed when Gareth knocked the barrel of his gun over Rick's head again, and that _horrible_ sound was the last thing Rick heard ringing through his ears, before he fell into the blackness where there were no babies or songs. Just _nonentity_.

.

.

_Drip! Drip!_

The sound of a dripping tap gradually filled Rick's ears, and his eyes slid open slowly and took several seconds to adjust to the light of the world beyond the backs of his eyelids.

He was on his knees in one of the train station's back rooms, gagged and limbs bound, and he'd been propped up against a long silver bathtub, along with several other strangers.

They each shot him anxious, frightened looks, and Rick creased his brow in confusion.

Beth was nowhere to be seen, and nor was Gareth or any of the men that had taken her. In fact, there was no trace of her anywhere at _all_.

He was going to fucking _kill_ them when he found out where they'd taken her.

_Drip!_

Growling against the gag in his mouth, Rick shifted his gaze downward into the tub, and almost jolted back in shock at what he saw running down the plughole…

And then he realised that the sound he'd heard when he'd first awoke was _not_ a dripping tap.

A river of deep red ran down the bathtub and oozed down the plughole, painting the faded silver a murky scarlet. Rick followed the red river with his eyes upstream, to where it was flowing out of one of the men's _throats_ — slit open and pouring blood out. He was slumped over the tub, dead, and only then did Rick notice the man standing behind him, clad in a gory apron and holding a long, bloody machete.

_Can't kill two turkeys in one slaughterhouse at the same time_.

_Drip!_

Rick struggled and thrashed in his restraints, knocking against the bathtub filled with blood, and chewed on the gag in his mouth, trying to bite through the tough fabric.

The man with the weapon—the _executioner_ —was steadily making his way down the line of men, slicing open their throats and pushing them down to allow the blood to flow out into the tub and down the drain.

He reached the man beside Rick and killed him, and just as he was about to reach for Rick… Gareth came strolling in.

"Looks like things are goin' well here," he remarked, casting his gaze down to Rick and flashing a haughty leer, "Hey there again, Rick."

Rick snarled against his gag and rubbed his wrists against the rope binding them.

Making a withdraw hand gesture to the man with the machete, Gareth walked over and crouched down so that he was eye-level with Rick. He stared at him, his eyes glinting with malice and sick delight, and he planted his hands on his own thighs.

"How's it feel to be the cattle instead of the executioner?" he asked.

Rick didn't reply, partially because he was unable to with the strip of cloth clogging his mouth, and partially because all he saw in the place of the man was a foggy rage.

Gareth smirked and reached over to tug the gag out of his mouth, leaving it hanging loose around his neck. Eyes blazing with revulsion, Rick frowned deeply and drew a long laugh from the fucking _cannibal_.

"What?" Gareth laughed, "Don't like it when it's not _you_ on the winning end? Don't worry, we'll make it quick. And just think about it. Your sacrifice will be for the greater good. It'll save lives… Keep our people strong… Fill their bellies…"

Rick spat in his face.

Gareth's eyes snapped shut as the ball of saliva hit his face, and he lifted a hand and wiped the sticky substance from his fair stubble.

"You're screwin' with the _wrong_ fuckin' man," Rick cautioned, _murderously_.

Gareth's eyes lit up with more of the sick delight.

"I am, am I?"

"You're gonna be sorry."

"You see, I _want_ to believe you, Rick. Really, I do. But that just seems like a bit of an empty threat in my opinion, surely you must understand why it looks that way. You're alone, immobile, about to die… And no one will ever know. That's the best part. No one'll come after us, because they'll never _know_ it was us who did it."

"Beth does."

Gareth laughed. "The girl? I thought you two knew one another, y'know. Her irrational outburst after we were gonna kill you back there seemed a little _extreme_ if she didn't."

Rick's eyes blazed with hatred, and his bound fingers itched to shove themselves down the man's laughing throat and yank out his vocal chords.

"Nobody's gonna know what happened to her either though," Gareth said after his laughing had subsided, "You're both gonna die here and no one will know. You can't do anythin' about it, no one else can do anythin' about it, and _Beth_ sure as _hell_ can't–"

A loud _siren_ started going off then, cutting Gareth's sentence short, and the metallic whining sound echoed through the building like a machine's wail.

Gareth stood up, glancing at the flashing red lights on the walls, and his expression darkened with both irritation and minor _fear_.

"Shit…" he muttered, "Who the hell set that fuckin' thing off!?"

"I don't know," the executioner replied, equally panicked, "No one's dumb enough to set this off even if there _is_ an actual fire. The sound'll draw every biter for miles!"

Gareth cursed some more under his breath and balled his fists. "Alex! With me. We gotta turn this fuckin' thing off _now,_ and find out which sonofabitch did this! C'mon."

As they left the room, Rick struggled more in his restraints and tried to rub the bindings apart to a breaking point, the sound of the fire alarm ringing in his ears.

He had to get out of this room and find Beth.

He had to find Beth, He _had to find Beth_.

Because he'd given up on her once already, and there wasn't going to be a second time that happened.

.

.

Beth was being dragged behind the two Termians roughly, their hands on her shoulders tight with fingers digging in as they hauled her through the musky smelling corridors.

They stopped at a door and pushed it open, shoving her inside so roughly that she fell to the ground with a light _thud!_ The floor was hard and dusty, and there were red skid marks in certain places where something looked to have been dragged. One of the men leaned close to the other and said something quietly, before one nodded with a disconcerting grin on his face and stepped out of the room, closing the door shut behind him.

The one left turned and gazed down at her, his eyes brimming with sick glee and an ominous smile tugging at his lips.

"Hey there…" he purred, stalking closer and making her skin crawl with the sickly sweet tone of his voice. Wiggling her hands against the thick piece of cloth binding them, she shifted backward and flashed a murderous grimace.

This did little to affect the Termian, as he moved closer to her and lowered himself to his knees, and crawled even closer.

He lifted her chin with his hand, feeling the trembles that were shaking her body, and smiled wider.

"Been a long time since I seen anyone as pretty as you," he whispered, his thumb stroking dirt from his skin across her own, "Never mind _touched_."

Beth's breath hitched.

"Gareth don't like this type o' thing…" he carried on, the strokes of his thumb growing in pressure, "Says it's wrong… He remembers this is what _they_ did to Mary an' all the rest of the women when they ran this place. Gave him some kind o' pathetic empathy or some shit like that, knowin' this was happenin' to his own dear Mama. Made him draw a solid line an' swear never to cross it. Noble prick."

"…Not _you_?" she asked, voice painfully timid, and breaking at the last syllable.

He shook his head.

"Not me."

He shifted his hand from her chin and combed it into her hair, brushing his other thumb across her shaking lips and up to her cheekbone. She shook her head and began to make a few small whines of protest, but he ignored them and shoved his chubby finger into her open mouth.

As he was swirling it around along her quivering tongue, his other hand reached down and possessively gripped her hip, before travelling further to unclasp the buckle of his belt.

The sound drew a somehow instinctive reaction from her, and she bit down on his finger _hard_.

Her jaws clamped down mercilessly and refused to let go, even as he yelped and tried to withdraw it from her capture. She only chomped harder the more he tried to pull away, teeth sinking into the grimy flesh so tight that she could feel the bone of his thumb between them, before he lifted up his other hand and _struck_ it against her scarred cheek, knocking it to the side and thus releasing his thumb.

The gash on her cheek re-opened at the severe contact, and blood oozed out from the slit and down her face and neck, like a scarlet teardrop.

The Termian looked down at his ruined finger and saw the bloody missing chunks and white bone showing. He breathed a loud _fuck!_ and glared at her with rage filling his features.

She mirrored the glare and bit down on her erotically polluted tongue.

"Fuckin' _bitch_!" he hissed, grabbing her by the ponytail and shoving her head down against the ground. She felt her bottom lip split because of this action, and small rivers of blood flowed into her mouth and painted her tonsils with the strong taste of old copper. After slamming her head down against the hard floor for a bit, he gripped her ponytail again and yanked her head up harshly, and clambered over her waist in a straddling position. Her bound hands appeared to be in the way because he unfastened the rope that was binding them and shoved them forward above her head.

She laid face-down on the floor with his enormous weight crushing her, face bruised and bloody, and the sound of his noisy belt unfastening flooding her ears.

_Do anythin' you have to do_.

As he ripped off her grey cardigan and tore open her yellow polo to reveal her dirty cream vest she was wearing underneath, Beth glanced around frantically for something to use as a weapon.

_Anything_.

A particularly large shard of glass from the broken window laid in a shattered pile nearby, and she reached out her arm to make a grab for it. The Termian was too occupied with stripping his pants down to work at undoing his boxers to notice what she was doing, so he was more than a little surprised when her fingers connected with the piece of glass and she thrust it up to cut at his neck.

He fell backward from on top of her and clutched his bleeding neck, blood spurting from the wound and from his choking mouth. Beth scrambled up with the makeshift weapon still in her hand and lunged at him, shoving the sharp end of the glass into his neck and fighting against his powerful arms, making more blood shoot out like geysers from the places she stabbed. He began to fall limp after a while, his fighting back ceasing, but she didn't stop from jabbing the piece of glass into his throat.

More blood shot up onto her chest, neck and face, painting her lips and mixing with her own wounds, but she didn't care.

Tears began to prick at her eyes and she started to release loud whimpers of distress, and as she was stabbing–no, _killing…_ the second man from before came bursting through the door and saw what she was doing to his companion.

Just as he moved to strike her, she leapt up and thrust the glass shard into his left rib, making him cry out as she forced him against the wall and pushed the weapon deeper into his lung.

He grunted in pain and kicked her in the shin, sending her toppling down backward.

He moved swiftly so that he was straddling her and curled his large hands around her neck to squeeze. Choking under his hand administrations, she kicked at him and slapped her hands helplessly against his shoulders. When this did little to move him or stop him from strangling her, she squeezed the fragment of glass in her hand and slashed it along the back of his neck, coating them both in a fresh wave of blood and sending him falling forward onto her in anguish.

When he fell onto her, she wasted no time in shoving him up off her and pinning him to the wall as best as she could, her hand stamped over his mouth and nostrils to cut off all oxygen flow. He screamed against her hand, blood pouring from his neck and causing his body to jolt wildly as if he was having a seizure, but she merely tightened her hand over his mouth.

She stared straight into his blown-wide pupils and watched the life slowly fade out of them until a pair of dull grey orbs stared back at her, and he went completely still.

Beth shuddered and released a breathy sob, tears leaking out from her eyes and streaming down her cheeks to mix with the blood – both hers _and_ the Termians.

She gave a helpless whine and removed her hand from the now dead man's mouth, and began to choke on her own jagged, clammy breaths.

_We do what we gotta do, We do what we gotta do._

_We DO what we gotta DO._

Rising to her feet, Beth wobbled as she came to a standing position and wandered over to the door, her footsteps shaky and uneven. She tasted the blood on her tongue and could feel it, hot and wet, all over her. Her vest was _soaked_ with it and she could feel it beginning to dry and flake against her stomach and shoulders, permanent like a second skin.

She let the blood-coated shard of glass drop from her fingers and fall to the ground with a shattered _smash!_ and forced herself to walk on.

As she was walking, vision fuzzy from tears and disturbance, she tripped and nearly stumbled over something lumpy on the floor. When she blinked her vision clearer, she saw that it was the Termian's pants, yanked off and left pooling around his ankles so he could do the same to hers… and take her against her will. She stomped on them and strode over towards the door, wiping her eyes and nose with the back of her hands, before she stopped and turned back.

Trying desperately to ignore the outright horrific scene she'd made in the room, she went back to the man she'd watched die by the wall, and reached down to pull out his gun and knife.

The gun was almost fully loaded, and the knife was a good enough size for her to use. Heck, a piece of broken _glass_ had been enough for her to take someone else's _life_. An actual weapon would do _more_ than the same.

Her shoulders were still shaking from what she'd just done, but she forced herself back up and out of the door.

Once outside the nightmarish room, the only sane and logical thought screaming throughout Beth's head was: _I have to find Rick._ _He's in here and I have to find him, I have to find him, I have to save him._

_He wouldn't leave me in here to die if our roles were reversed_.

She walked down the hallway with the gun and knife in each hand, blood still pouring from the gash on her cheek and her split lip, and the bruises around her eye were throbbing in rhythmic pulses.

As she walked, she spotted a clear encasement on the wall with a fire alarm button inside, and an idea sparked inside her head. A revelation that she didn't think she could have done before the turn, and maybe not even before the prison.

Could the Beth that had grown up on the farm have just _killed_ two full-grown men with a scavenged piece of glass?

This new world wasn't about the things you could and couldn't have done before. That didn't matter anymore. The person you used to _be_ didn't matter anymore.

It's not who you were that decides who you _are_. You have to be something else. Something fiercer; something stronger. Something willing to do anything to stay safe, and stay alive.

Be who you _are_ , not who you were.

So Beth Greene stalked over to that fire alarm encasement and shattered the glass casing with the holt of the gun, and slammed her fist against the big red button inside.

And that triggered the siren.


End file.
